wag

   This word now refers to a joker, or a clever and amusing talker. Until the seventeenth century it was a term applied to a mischievous boy as an endearment, especially by his mother. Falstaff calls Prince Hal ‘sweet wag’ in Henry the Fourth Part One (l:ii). In The Two Centlemen of Verona (5:iv) Valentine says to Julia, who is disguised as a boy: ‘Why, boy! why, wag! how now! What’s the matter?’ R.N.G.Rowland has suggested in private correspondence with the author that ‘wag’ may have given rise to ‘wack’, then ‘wacker’ in dialectal English speech, especially in the Liver-pool, Manchester, Sheffield, Hull area.

   The latter terms are used as the equivalent of ‘mate’, ‘pal’, ‘friend’. ‘Wacker’ is used in a friendly way in Lucky Jim, by Kingsley Amis. Another correspondent, however, Sergeant D. C.Summers, who was born in Liverpool in 1943, says that he has never heard ‘wack’ or ‘wacker’ used in that city, as is often stated to happen.